Sermon Tone Analysis

–The New Yorker had a cartoon where a young boy in math class is standing at the chalk board with other students.

The teacher has written the problem on the board for each student: 7 x 5 = __ .

All the other students have the answer right: 35.

But this boy has written 7 x 5 = 75.

The teacher has obviously told him it’s wrong, and he says to her, “It may be wrong, but it’s how I feel.”

That is a perfect metaphor of our culture.

Responding to the cartoon’s message, Stephen Carter, a professor of law at Yale University says, “Faith is dead, reason is dying, but ‘how I feel’ is going strong.”

We are not interested in the Word of God because we are not interested in the truth.

We are not interested in God’s will, because we are wrapped up in our will and doing what we want to do.

We want to go by our feelings which are much more to our liking.

Many peoples God is their feelings.

If you live in a graveyard too long you stop crying when someone dies.

\\ And we need to weep: FOR OUR WORLD - COUNTRY – CHILDREN – CHURCHES – MARRIAGES

*King Josiah “A Reign of Reform”  2 Chronicles 34 & 35 *

2 Kings 21:24-23:30

Manasseh 55 years, Amon 2 years, 57 year span from Hezekiah to Josiah  57 years ago, March of 1952 who was president of US? Harry Truman, Eisenhower would  be elected in Fall.

15th King, 16th Leader (Athaliah)  31 year reign  Reigned 640- 609 BC   Great Grandson of  Hezekiah

Jeremiah begins his ministry, Zephaniah also begins his ministry (Great-Great Grandson of Hezekiah) seems to be a prophet of preparation, Nahum prophecies destruction of Nineveh,(Jonah would be pretty excited) Habakkuk’s ministry will soon begin,

*2 Kings 23:25*   */Before him there was no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him./*

*A Righteous Reign*

*/1/**/ Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.

2 He did right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of his father David and did not turn aside to the right or to the left.

/*

Josiah was just a youngen when he came to the throne.

What were you doing when you were 8?

He is compared to the greatest King.

King David and he walked rightly.

His 31 year reign there is  nothing said that is negative on his character, nothing.

*Reform of the Land*

*/3 For in the eighth year of his reign(16) while he was still a youth, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year (20) he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, the carved images and the molten images.

/*

Josiah begins his great reformation of the land.

He begins to make changes, drastic ones.

*The Zeal of the Reformer*

*/4 They tore down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and the incense altars that were high above them he chopped down; also the Asherim, the carved images and the molten images he broke in pieces and ground to powder and scattered it on the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.

/*

*/ 5 Then he burned the bones of the priests on their altars and purged Judah and Jerusalem.

/*

*/ 6 In the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, Simeon, /**/even as far as Naphtali/**/, in their surrounding ruins, 7 he also tore down the altars and beat the Asherim and the carved images into powder, and chopped down all the incense altars throughout the land of Israel.

Then he returned to Jerusalem.

/*

Josiah is serious, he has a zeal, a burning desire to get rid of all this junk, all the idols, and horrid things that were worshipped.

He is on fire to take care of these things.

He grinds the images to powder.

There’s nothing left of them.

He even burns the bones of the priests that had offered  up & been involved in this wicked worship.

His zealousness for The Lord takes him out of Judah and into some of the cities of Israel.

All the way North to Naptali.

He is wripping and tearing down everything false and all the idols are history.

Notice his firsthand involvement.

Then he returned to Jerusalem, after he layed waste to all these horrible items of false worship.

You may  have read of Shermans march through the south during the civil war, here we have Josiahs march through the countries.

Josiah is an example of something we don’t often see to much of anymore.

A person who is zealous for God.

A little girl saw a sign in a church and was crying.

It read, “The zeal of Thy house hath consumed me.”

An elder asked why she was crying.

“I’m afraid of the zeal.”

He answered, “Don’t worry little girl; there’s no zeal in this place.”

He sadly nailed the truth.

In many Churches today, there is no zeal for God, no burning passion for Him.

Boldness & courage for Christ demonstrated in how we live.

Today so often "We are content to be the keepers of the aquarium, rather than be fishers of men."

*Romans 12 *

*/9/**/  Let love be without hypocrisy.

Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good.

/*

*/     10  Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; /*

*/     11 not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; /*

Fervent in Spirit, to bubble, to boil over.

Josiah was bubbling over!

How about you?

Where is your spiritual temperature?

Are you boiling over or froze over?

“Story as a young Christian”

*Restoration & Repair of the ruins*

*/8 /**/Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah an official of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.

/*

*/9 They came to/* */Hilkiah the high priest and delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites, the doorkeepers, had collected from Manasseh and Ephraim, and from all the remnant of Israel, and from all Judah and Benjamin and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

10 Then they gave it into the hands of the workmen who had the oversight of the house of the Lord, and the workmen who were working in the house of the Lord used it to /**/restore and repair/**/ the house.

11They in turn gave it to the carpenters and to the builders to buy quarried stone and timber for couplings and to make beams for the houses which the kings of Judah had let go to ruin.

(Break)/*

Other surrounding buildings were delapatated as well.

The Temple and it’s surrounding structures had been neglected.

Pickup

*Rediscovery of The Word*

*/Hilkiah Discovers Lost Book of the Law/*

*/14 /**/When they were bringing out the money which had been brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found the book of the law of the Lord given by Moses.

15 Hilkiah responded/* */and said to Shaphan the scribe, “I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.”

And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan.

/*

*/16 Then Shaphan brought the book to the king and reported further word to the king, saying, “Everything that was entrusted to your servants they are doing.

17 “They have also emptied out the money which was found in the house of the Lord, and have delivered it into the hands of the supervisors and the workmen.”

18 Moreover, Shaphan the scribe told the king saying, “Hilkiah the priest gave me a book.”

And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king./*

*/19/**/ When the king heard the words of the law, he tore his clothes./*

It’s remarkable that the Book of the Law should be lost /in the temple!

/That would be like losing the Bible in a church building and not missing it for years.

This scroll was probably all five books of Moses, but Shaphan “read in the book”; that is, he read the king-selected passages, perhaps from the Book of Deuteronomy.

Shaphan gave the king a report on the building program and then, almost as an afterthought, told him about the newly discovered book.

It’s to Josiah’s credit that he desired to hear what the book said, and when he heard it read, he was smitten with fear and grief.

How people respond to God’s Word is a good indication of their spiritual appetite and the strength of their desire to please the Lord.

If indeed Shaphan read from the Book of Deuteronomy, then what Josiah heard read from chapters 4–13 would convict him about the wicked things the nation /had already done/.

Chapters 14–18 would disturb him because of what the people /had not done/, and the covenant spelled out in chapters 27–30 would warn him of /what God would do /if the nation didn’t repent.

In the terms of His covenant, the Lord made it clear that the nation would be punished severely if they disobeyed His law.

So deeply moved was the king that he tore his robes and ordered the high priest and several officers to inquire of the Lord concerning Judah’s spiritual condition.

Josiah was only twenty-six years old and had been seeking the Lord for only ten years, yet his response to the Word of God was that of a mature believer.

Most likely all the other copies of the scriptures had been destroyed by Manasseh and Amon.